Jacob is not who he used to be. His eyes, his voice, even his breath smells the same, somehow. But he's not my husband. Not anymore.

Looking out at the garden, I find he's more like an ornament. A tall, slender lawn decoration. A grownup gnome. The sun shines over his skin and you can almost see through him.

When we have sex I don't feel the love, so much as I feel a foreign object prodding around inside me. He doesn't even sweat anymore. He looks wet, but isn't at all. Jacob fucks me and our bodies skids together; the sleek creases in the curves of mine rub against his cold rubbery skin. The friction leaves raw, red patches on all around my breasts, down my stomach. Though, he rarely notices.

He didn't come back until after Noah went to university. Or, well, I didn't bring him back until then. I just felt it was easier. If he came back before, maybe Noah wouldn't have gone. He'd be too happy to leave. Then again, after awhile I'm sure he'd figure it all out. Our son isn't stupid.

The air felt like electricity the night Jacob came home. Someone from the hospital dropped him off. I met him in the driveway. He hugged me into his chest. Things felt normal for the first time in so long. We spent the rest of the evening lying in bed. For a second time in the matter of a day, my head rested on his chest. But in the moment I didn't bother to listen; not hard enough, anyways.

I started noticing strange behavior about a week after he first came back. At first, it was only his missing smile. Later, things got weirder.

I caught Jacob in the kitchen one night, on his knees and head first into our refrigerator. Half of his body disappeared inside, as if it swallowed him up. Instead of asking what he was doing, I thought it'd be funny to watch him. Then I saw him pull back from the fridge. He held up a fistful of cold cuts: some thin sliced turkey, a few strips of roast beef, all balled in his palms. And he was feeling them, squeezing the chilly meats and looking down into his hands. A weird smile spread across his face.

I felt a little sick. The beef and turkey swelled between each finger, ballooning slightly out from the crevasses. It reminded me of being fifteen again, swimming in a friend's pool without sunscreen and walking away with a bubbly, blistering second-degree sunburn. Watching my husband with the meat in his hands it looked like seeing an ape touch soft shaven skin for the first time.

I didn't tell Jacob what I saw. The next day I found myself straying from his touch. He pulled me in and cupped my breast, then put a hand around the nape of my neck to brush away some hair. All I saw was my sunburned teenage skin like those pieces of meat, popping out around his clenched knuckles. The image felt tattooed across the hemispheres of my brain. It wouldn't leave. Those were the moments I began to feel the strange otherness of his skin.

"Did I do something?" Jacob's eyes had the look of a child who'd hurt someone for the first time. He didn't try holding on and backed away from me.

"No. It's just… well, honey, it's strange."

"What's that?"

"Having you here"

"Oh," his voice trailed off. His eyes glazed over briefly and stared out into space. He came back after a moment then said: "I can go, if you'd rather that."

"I didn't say I want you to go, Jake."

"You haven't said you don't, either."

I hesitated, wondering whether or not I ought to bring up the refrigerator, what I'd caught him doing. "What were you doing last night? Late, after we'd gone to bed. I heard you doing something downstairs."

"I was getting a glass of water," he said. His eyes flickered, as if their color changed in an instant.

Exchanging glances, Jacob and I stood looking at each other like two strangers. "You could've just grabbed your glass from the bathroom."

His eyes moved again, strangely. They were like the eyes of a lizard, darting back, forth. One rolled upwards, twitching and jittery against its socket. Like a cue ball rattling around in the corner pocket of a pool table before disappearing.

"Jesus, Jake - are you okay?"

"I'm fine!" His voice came out deeper than ever, bellowing and guttural. As if someone else wore his skin hiding underneath, accidentally slipping out of character.

With that, he ran up to the bathroom off our bedroom.

"Jake," I called out but my own voice cracked and nearly evaporated.

His voice drifted down from upstairs: "Don't worry about it. Just got something in my eye."

Moving up the stairs, I went slowly. I pressed my toes down first, then my heel, all without a bit of noise. When I reached the landing I tiptoed towards our room. The soft pads of my feet punctuated my sneakiness, lightly sticking with every step on the hardwood floor. I made it to the bedroom. A small sliver of light escaped the bathroom through the door's crack.

And inside, Jacob - the man who used to be my husband - was pushing his fingers up under the skin around his jawline. I looked on in horror, as his index and middle finger both poked up through his cheek. The rubber-like flesh didn't change color, it didn't go white as it stretched. Neither did his face look flushed.

I finally saw who's been hiding under there once Jacob hauled the skin up, uncovering those plastic tubes and the stitched together meat. Is that still his skeleton? I wondered. Or did they have to use a different one? The outer layer of flesh rested up over his forehead, like a Halloween mask. I watched him gently pick a piece of lint off his eyeball, stuck at the corner up under the bone of his eye socket.

As he folded the oddly colored skin back down over his face, I quietly went back to the stairs, down to the living room. I thought about calling them back to say I wasn't comfortable anymore, not after seeing what's under the hood. But I never bothered. Not sure why.

Maybe having him here like this is better than not having him at all. Maybe the feeling of his elastic skin against mine is better than nothing.

That night, after we went to bed, I let Jacob spoon me. His bare torso touched my naked back. I tried not to let the feeling overcome me. Finally, once I fell asleep, all I could dream of was Jacob laying next to me.

Except I wasn't me. I was a pile of cold, sliced meat. Jacob ran his fingers through the folds of the meat, snuggling it close. And his smile, it came back. Not the big Cheshire grin I'd seen him with at the refrigerator. It was his old smile.

When I woke up during the middle of the night, sweaty and warm, he wasn't smiling. There was only my slippery, wet skin pinching against his artificial body.

The night was chilly, and the first snow covered the hills that surrounded this sleepy town like a jealous lover. Dave Burn, a self proclaimed clairvoyant, who made his fortune thanks to superstitious people, walked quickly through the dark streets to meet the cozy heat of his small, rented apartment. Yes, he was pleased with the sum of money which he took from some poor guy, providing him with only sleepless nights and nothing more. He was thinking about moving to another location, perhaps at the other end of the town, because people like him can't cheat in one place. Some angry client could ask for him, and then who knows? They could break his bones.

He was occupied with his thoughts so he couldn't notice the outline of a man, who was sitting between two piles of scattered garbage.

He walked by him, almost brushing the old man's naked feet. Then he stopped, after he heard a hoarse voice."Sir ... hey sir," the man whispered, wrapped in tattered rags.

"Who's there?" Dave asked nervously.

"Sorry if I scared you ... do you have some change for the poor old man?"

"Oh, leave me alone ... I have nothing!" said Dave.

"I would say that you do have some money, the way you look. But listen, I'm hungry and I will be grateful if you give me a few bucks," said the beggar, using such a calm voice.

"Hey ... What the fuck do you know if I do have or don't have that shitty money, but if you ask me, you could die of hunger!" Dave shouted now, already irritated, and then he made another step deeper into the shadows of that secret alley. "It's cold and I have to run, so bugger off!"

"Why are you so upset, sir? There's no reason for that, you can just say that nicely," he heard the beggar talking and then stopped again.

He was totally confused and he didn't know what to say. He only knew that beggars never talk like that. They just hold their filthy hands out and mutter something.

But this one was different somehow. He spoke like someone who has just jumped out of his business suit and decided to freeze his ass in the stench of scattered garbage.

"Please say that again ... I think I did not understand you," Dave said.

"Well, you see," said the beggar, "we can do this other way. Can I give you something in return?Let's make a deal, what do you say?"

"What are you talking about?" Dave asked, accepting conversation with a brief touch of interest.

"You can give me some money, and I'll give you something very interesting," said the beggar, unfurling the newspaper that lay on the damp concrete beside him.

Dave was intrigued by this strange man's sudden offer. "Let's see what you've got."

The man unwrapped his partially wet paper and pulled a solid object out, which Dave could not recognize, because of the darkness.

"Come closer, I don't bite," said the old man.

Dave hesitated for a moment and then decided to take a better look. He bent over into a fierce stench. He didn't know what smelled stronger: the old man or the garbage. He knelt and when his eyes were adjusted to the darkness, he saw that this weirdo was holding something that looked like a children's doll.

He couldn't understand this old man's game, and it infuriated him."Do you think I'm a little baby, and I need a doll? Do you maybe have a pacifier too, you damn fool? "

"This is something more than a doll," said the old man ignoring his swearing, and pushed the warm thing in his hand.

Dave was confused, but only momentarily. He was about to push it back, and to hit that old fool. He stood up now and stared at the doll.

He was fascinated by its simplicity. The doll was some kind of a neuter moppet, and much different from the others, which he's seen in his life. It didn't have extra clothes. It was completely white and no synthetic hair. It only had two unusual details, which gave it a morbid appearance: A long shallow slit, stretched across its back, and a strange face without a nose and mouth. Instead of eyes, two scrawled characters. They reminded him of a letter X.

Those "eyes'' reminded him of funny cartoons as well, that he watched when he was a kid. Dead animals were presented with those eyes and with their tongue sticking out. A smile was replaced by amazement on his face, and he looked up at the beggar.

He wanted to tell him that he likes the puppet, and then he realized that the old man was no longer there. Dave was surprised, and he felt like a person awaken from a deep sleep. He shouted, calling for the man.

Only his voice echoed between the dark buildings.

+++

Quiet music played on the radio. It was good old jazz from the '40s.

Dave was sitting on the bed and studied the slit on the doll's back, which extended from its mid-neck to the butt. Without thinking, he put his finger in the slit and slid it halfway through. The innards were soft and warm. He could feel the excitement and warmth spreading through him, warming his bones. Sweet thoughts passed through his head, and then he thought that the slit moistened.

"What am I doing?" he muttered and suddenly pulled his finger out.

He could not believe what he saw. The finger was bloody.

I'm out of my mind ... he thought, and threw the doll on the floor, then got up and went into the bathroom to wash his hand.

There was a sink with a mirror above it. A quite pale and confused man looked at him from the oval glass, a man who, after that night, will no longer be able to explain some things to himself.

He went back into the bedroom and stood over the place where the doll lay. He hesitated for a while and then decided to pick it up. He put his finger in the slit again, but now there was no trace of moisture or blood.

"I thought ... I just thought that I saw blood..."

He wanted to throw the doll away, but there was something that stopped him.

Instead, he put it on the bedside cabinet and lay down. He turned the radio off shutting the virtuoso saxophonist and the light. He listened to the wind howling under the window, and he could not sleep for a long time.

He thought of the old man and the puppet, and about the man he cheated tonight, telling him that he would soon be dead.

Stray dogs were barking in the distance, and then he fell asleep.

Part Two: Bloodshed

He dreamed of standing on the field and looking at a lonely rocky hill.

Everything was perfectly quiet: no birds, no wind and noises.

Those surroundings were familiar to him.

He walked toward the hill, and as he was getting closer, he saw some ruins at its peak. They looked like an old fortress, of which only partially preserved walls with holes from the windows remained.

He felt discomfort due to the ruins.

They awoke some sick feeling with their ominous presence, so he decided not to climb up.

He turned around and saw a man walking slowly toward him. He could not see who it was,because of the great distance between them. When the man finally approached, Dave realized that his face was familiar.

It was the beggar, dirty and smelly, who dragged the material for his house behind him: a cardboard box.

"Are you satisfied with our business?" the old man asked.

Just for a moment Dave doubted the dream and believed that this is really the spacious field.

It was all too real.

"Yes or no?" asked the old man, in his quiet raspy voice.

Dave wanted to ask him where he came from and what he means by this question, and then he realized that he could not speak. The brain was sending a command, but the language and the mouth were refusing it. Panic seized him and he recalled that in some dreams he could not cry when he was hunted by the creatures from the world of shadows.

He wanted to run and look away from the sleazy old man, and then the other one said: "Just nod if you like what I gave you ... I know you can't talk, but don't worry, it's better this way."

Confused and frightened, Dave remembered the doll he was given by the beggar, but he didn't understand what he was talking about. He decided to move away from him, but his legs were not listening.

Then the old man said, "I understand now ... All of this is a bit strange, but you'll get it!"

After he approached Dave, he stretched his hand, stained with some unusual disease, and touched his face.

Dave shuddered. The old man brought down his hand, looking at his gnarled fingers. Then, Dave noticed that the old man's fingers were stained with blood.

He began to laugh, and Dave felt something around them change: like the environment disappeared, and became darker.

The old man's laughter died away and Dave suddenly realized he was in the dark. He knew that his eyes were open, and for a moment he thought he was blind.

Fear was biting now and it took him a few seconds to move.

Then he saw the window of his room, from which the low-light fell on the cabinet and the doll sitting on it.

He realized that he woke up, and lit the lamp.

His wet shirt clung to the body, and his breathing was distinctly shortened.

"Fucking dreams!" he cried into the empty room. The doll hanged her head to the right.

Its face had a lifeless expression.

"What are you doing to me?" he asked, although he knew that it could not answer. "Who's the old man, who are you?"

Then he got up, grabbed the doll and went to the window. He paused only for a moment to feel the slit that was completely dry now, and said: "Like I thought, that's stupid." Then he opened the window and threw it on the wet street.

He was in bed again, turned off the lights and wentto sleep. But, he thought he heard an alien voice, somewhere deep down, in the most intimate landscapes of his mind. Then, like some sharp ice blades, the phone ringing broke his comatose REM state.

"Hello ... hello ..." said the heavy voice of a dead man.

Dave recognized the voice of his friend Henry, on the other end of the line.

"Sorry if I woke you up, I know it's late."

"No worries ... how come ... you're calling right now?"

"I have some very bad news, Dave ... it's about John and Isabel..."

"What's wrong with them ... what happened?" Dave asked, confused.

"They're dead Dave. Police found their bodies about half an hour ago." Henry's voice was trembling.

"Oh God ..." Dave didn't know what to say. He knew John and Isabel since his student days, as well as he knew Henry. The four of them were really good friends. John was dating Isabel for a few years now. They planned to get married in the next couple of months.

"Last night they went out ... and never showed up again. Isabel's parents were worried," said Henry. "They weren't at John's, or at their close friends. I thought her parents had contacted you."

"No ... the phone would certainly wake me up. Where ... where were they found?" Dave asked.

"When they called me and asked if I saw them, I remembered one of the places John often told me about ... places he likes to go," Henry said. ''They were found in that place.''

"What place?"

"The old fortress above the town," said Henry.

Dave felt tingles ascending through his spine. He dreamed of the fortress tonight.

"Dave, are you there ... Dave?"

"I ... can't, I do not know what to say," Dave said.

"I can't talk any longer," said Henry. "I'm calling you from the police station. They kept me because I am a suspect and associated with this case ... you know, the way I guessed the crime scene and stuff ... and it's so hard Dave, I do not know ..." he began to cry.

"I'll pick you up, just tell me where you are."

"No need, they'll let me go soon I believe."

Dave heard the irritating sound of a broken connection now. The fortress leaned over the city, like some ugly memory of ancient times. Various stories circulated about it, but almost no one knew its true history.

All that was left of it were a few dilapidated walls, and the wasteland between them overgrown by tall grass. The lovers often came there, sometime during the day, sometimes at the blood-red dusk, because they thought it was a romantic place. Sometimes those boys and girls were drinking beer, smoking pot.

In the smooth, handwritten history of the city, there were no recorded or remembered atrocities connected to that cold, evil-looking thing; until that fateful night when John Terence and Isabel Dawson were killed. The dawn was creeping out of the chilling darkness. Dave was standing in front of one of the few entrances to that granite monster, and watched the yellow crime scene tape that stretched around the walls.

He glanced over his shoulder to see if someone was spying on him, and then slipped under the tape and entered between the walls. He went through a little smelly room, then through a small courtyard, and two other rooms without a roof. He found himself in a large central part of the fortress, which was also roofless. Three walls were relatively preserved, while the fourth was heavily damaged and dangerous, due to the large gaping holes leading into the abyss. He was nervous because his friends were killed there, recently. It was hard, but at the same time he was confused because the dream he had somehow predicted this tragic event.

In real life he was a false prophet, and he knew that there was no possibility that he could really predict something. All the time he designed and constructed the fate of the people in his sick mind. But he had a vision on a previous night.

He saw the blood and thought that beggar and the moppet have something to do with it. Now he stood at the highest place and watched sleepy town in the valley.

Maybe I do have this gift, he thought, and then he heard the familiar voice, coming from behind him. He turned around just to see Henry, standing several meters away.

"They let me go because they had no evidence," said Henry.

"That's good, but you were supposed to tell me where to pick you up."

"It doesn't matter ... I went to your apartment after they released me. You've been gone, so I assumed you're here."

"I had to come," said Dave.

"I know, it's hard for you and I'm also fucked up, but we should not be here. You saw the ban. We can't do anything ... we can't get them back!"

Dave was silent, and he wiped his tears with the palm of his trembling hand. He knew that they would not help, but he couldn't control them.

The pain was too strong.

"We can go to my place, smoke some weed ... try to relax, at least for a while," Henry said.

"Why not?" Dave replied. It was almost a decade since he smoked marijuana, and he remembered how he enjoyed it.

The two mourning friends stopped at the exit so that they could glance once again at the place where the souls of their friends will be trapped forever.

Part Three: Deadface

Darkness fell, and Dave was returning home. The grass was withdrawing its tentacles from his body. There was buzzing in his head and he felt a mild vertigo.

He didn't even notice that he was walking down the same street, where it all began. When he realized where he was, he began to turn around, anticipating that he'll catch dirty old man, but the street was completely empty. This time he could not get answers to questions that have plagued him.

"Where you at, you damn old man ... where are you hiding? What is happening to me?" The words echoed off the dark walls, which were intermittent with high windows, their glasses smashed.

"Be quiet you idiot!" Someone yelled from the upper floors.

Dave kicked the sardine can and walked away. The metallic sound was cutting the silence, while the can rolled and hit the skeleton of an abandoned car.

He felt some smelly heat after he walked into his apartment.

He passed by a lamp, and didn't turn the light on, but came to the window and opened it.

Cold air touched his gloomy face. He stood there, frozen for a few moments, and then closed the window again. His eyes were very heavy with fatigue and he was about to lie down, when he saw the doll sitting on the table beside the bed. He lit the lamp and touched its soft white body. It was warm, and he felt his cock getting hard.

+++

Henry was sleeping and dreaming about sitting with John and Isabel in a completely deserted white room, without doors and windows. The three of them were sitting on the floor. His friends were covered with blood; their wounds, which looked like scratches by some large animal's claw, opened their skinny bodies in several places. He wasn't scared.

John told him that he wants to marry Isabel, who smiled gently, and blood flowed from her mouth. Henry said he was glad, and suggested that he should be the best man.

At that point, the walls began to curl, and Henry asked John what was happening.

"He's coming for you," was his reply.

Henry was startled from his sleep, panting like he had just ran a couple of miles.

"Mother of God ... It's terrible, terrible," he whispered to the cold room.

Then he heard some noises from nearby; he was stiff and he listened. There was the creaking of a floor and Henry thought that he was still dreaming, but the reality of the shadows and sounds, reassured him completely. His heart started to pound.

Slowly, he moved and picked up the letter opener, which stood on the table beside the bed. Soft footsteps were approaching his room, and he got up from the bed and headed for the door.

He wanted to stand behind them and surprise a burglar.

But before he reached the wall, the door opened with a crash, and he stopped in his tracks with a hand up, which held the metal opener firmly. There was a silhouette of the burglar, who stood there now, his outline vibrating between the door frames.

Henry's eyes couldn't believe what they were seeing.

It was a man wrapped in a white cloth, which clung to the body, and highlighted his every muscle. He had no nose or mouth, and instead of eyes there were two slits that were reminiscent of the two letters X.

Some wet sound was coming from behind this abstract midnight visitor. That was a huge bloody slit, but of course, Henry couldn't have known that. Blood was dripping on the floor, and the wound produced the sound, as it expanded and tightened, like the gills the creature used for breathing.

Dave was standing in front of a house now.

He thought it was terribly familiar, but he could not remember where from.

He was not sure whether he's asleep or not, because of the same feeling of reality that he felt while dreaming of the fortress. He was not even sure if the fortress was a dream, on a night his friends were brutally murdered. Now he felt like a ghost, who has left the body, and floated in a wide street, surrounded by old Victorian homes. Then he remembered.

"Yes, it's Henry's house ... what am I doing here?"

He wanted to turn around and leave because the house looked somewhat sinister, cold and creepy. But he didn't feel his legs, and he was not able to run.What is happening to me? I have to reach Henry.

He tried to shout, but even that did not work.

His tongue was lying dead in its crib. There was sudden panic that crept out of the dark depths, and suddenly his field of vision was divided into two pictures. Now, his sight made out of the two images was blending in the middle.

One image showed Henry's house, overlooking the street, and the other, he realized that after a few moments, showed the interior and Henry standing in the middle of the room, with the expression of astonishment on his face. Dave was astonished as well. He wondered how he has one eye floating around out there, and the other in the room interwoven with shadows.

Henry watched him, holding something that looked like a knife in his hand. Dave tried to greet him, and to ask what was it about, but he failed. Then, he finally made a step, but only partially:Outside, in front of the house Dave was still standing, and inside the room he was moving toward Henry.

I'm dreaming ... this is only possible in dreams he thought and felt some kind of satisfaction.

There was no more fear and amazement. He walked slowly towards Henry, who started to withdraw behind the bed, but then Henry was swinging with a letter opener, as he warned Dave not to get closer. Henry looks funny, Dave thought.

He raised his hand to his confused and frightened friend, and now it entered his field of vision.Then he noticed that something was wrong. It was a hand of a puppet, with elongated fingers, pointed as ice picks, white as the dead man.

He paused, and that moment of confusion was enough for Henry to run toward him and thrust his opener, with all of his strength, in his stomach. Dave looked up at Henry now seeing the whole picture.

The fear on Henry's face turned into amazement.

Then Henry spoke. "Dave ... it's impossible ... what have you done, I ... I ..." he stammered.

He couldn't believe what he saw. His friend was now standing in front of him, holding his stomach, from which the letter opener protruded.

Blood flowed from his mouth, and then he collapsed on the floor. Henry knelt beside him calling his name. He was holding his head in his bloody arms while tears went down his cheeks.

"Oh God, what have I done, oh God," he sobbed, and then heard Dave who tried to speak.

"Now ... I realize what happened to me ... the old man's doll ... somehow came to life and ... used me ... we exchanged ... bodies. I turned into a monster ... and killed ... while I was convinced that I have a gift ... to see the future.

"The doll did it. It used ... my desire, and my body ... as an instrument for its own purposes. It can happen to anyone ... who touches it ... you should destroy it," he barely spoke while life was slowly leaking out of him.

Henry wouldn't believe his crazy story, if he wasn't the witness of this bizarre and Tartarean show. "Where's the doll, where have you left it, Dave ... Dave?"

"In ... my room at ..." he could not speak and the body let go.

He died in Henry's arms, who slowly lowered his head to the floor, then put on a jacket, and ran into the street.

+++

A bedroom window was open. The wind tore the veil with its icy touch, while the snow fell on the carpet in front of the bed, melting away into oblivion. The room was empty and the doll was sitting on the bedside table, its head downcast as if asleep, its arms loose, eyes meaningless.

The dark silhouette emerged from the shadows, and lifted the doll from the cabinet. Neon lights of a nearby motel located in the neighboring building, shone on the face of this sudden visitor, but just for a moment. The old beggar was standing in the room, wrapped in tattered rags. He had long, slimy octopus tentacles instead of legs.

His smile was spreading while two worms were trying to escape out of his mouth. He sucked them back in, and swallowed them with such a great appetite.

"It's a shame! Reason dragged him to the other side, and I thought that we would play with him some more. He showed a lot of promise, he was young and strong,wasn't he, old friend?"

The doll stared into emptiness.

"But it doesn't matter ... we will find another victim," said the old man, hiding a doll in a newspaper.

Henry was running down the slippery street towards Dave's building. Snow hindered his view, and the wind tried to slow him down. When he finally arrived, he climbed the stairs and entered the apartment. He turned on the light and ran to close the window.

Suddenly, he looked around and scanned the room. He opened a drawer of a nightstand, rolled a pillow on the bed, and looked underneath it, but there was no sign of the doll.

He heard hideous laughter, howling through the wind, becoming halcyon, and eventually stopped completely. He went to the window, opened it and looked down the narrow street.

A black cat ran across it and disappeared into the shadows.

Henry returned to the bed and sat down. He covered his face with his bloody hands.

He knew that the problems were beginning now; problems that he won't be able to solve.

A piece of horehound candy was stuck in the boy’s teeth. He chewed on a jawbreaker to dislodge it. It was Halloween and little Petri was walking to the town church for the evening’s festivities. The crisp autumn air stung his cheeks as he walked. It was a cloudy afternoon and the dark twisting limbs of the trees defined themselves sharply against the fall sky. Petri was a small pale-faced boy of eight years with skinny legs, blond straw-like hair and bright green eyes. The boy loved Halloween, everything about it. The costumes, the decorations, the festivities. The candy. But more than anything else he loved the stories. Ghost stories. And his hometown of Shadow Grove was full of them.

Shadow Grove was a sleepy colonial town not quite hidden among the backwaters of the Chesapeake Bay in the woods of Virginia. Nestled between the Belfonte River and the Powhatan Forest, Shadow Grove claimed itself to be the best preserved town of the Colonial Americas. City records showed that it had been founded shortly after the settling of its sister colony Jamestown in the south. The oldest known graves that the Shadow Grove cemetery featured dated back to the 1620’s. But the town cemetery was not the graveyard Petri had on his mind that afternoon.

The brittle red yellow leaves crunched under the boy’s feet as he walked along the cobble-stoned streets. He liked to hear them crunch. He waved to old Mrs. Bradford as he walked by her front porch. She was draping cobwebs on her American flag. She waved back. Petri popped in a fresh piece of saltwater taffy. At Belfonte Elementary that day, the kids dressed in costumes and passed out candy and cards to each other. Afterwards Mr. Barton led a class discussion about Shadow Grove and its history. Quickly this led to stories, the ones Petri liked best.

Like many old towns, Shadow Grove had a vast array of fantastic stories and folktales—campfire lore, the types of fearful whisperings that little boys told while lying awake at summer camp, reminders scrawled on the wood of restroom stalls. The stories were cautionary tales for Shadow Grovers who weren’t brushing their teeth and saying their prayers. Stanley Dowder, a sixth-grader, was the school expert on the subject, the self-appointed town chronicler. Petri’s mother said the boy was a liar, but Petri knew better. Dowder spoke of 17th century mass witch burnings, like the ones they were having in Salem except these witches were real. Dowder had seen Colonial frigates sailing up the river at night, vanishing into the fog without a trace. He and his buddies had fallen asleep at the town cemetery one night, only to wake up with some of the headstones rearranged. Dowder had seen things in the woods, strange things, and everybody knew about those kids who disappeared without explanation a few years back when Petri was too young to remember. Of course the adults had an explanation for this, but Dowder didn’t buy it. Neither did Petri.

As Petri walked through town he saw a crow buzzing atop the central mailbox in front of the post office. Petri threw a piece of black licorice at the bird. It squawked, flying off into the woods. Postman Henderson gave him a wink. He was locking the post office door, probably getting ready for the festivities. There was going to be a Halloween festival that night at First United Church. The entire town would be there. As one of the first buildings in Shadow Grove, First United Church’s roof was constructed from the hull of The Constable, the ship in which Captain Belfonte and the town’s founding fathers had arrived many years ago. Petri could see the church’s high steeple away in the distance. It was getting darker, the clouds settling in for the night. The boy shivered. It was going to be foggy soon. Petri ate his licorice thinking of his favorite ghost story, a Stanley Dowder classic and an absolute legend among the kids at Belfonte Elementary: the tale of Scarback, the savage Indian.

From what Petri knew of Scarback, his entire tribe had been slaughtered by Captain Belfonte, Shadow Grove’s founding father, during the settling of the town in the 17th century. The bodies were buried deep into the woods where they could never be found. Scarback, an infant at the time, was the sole survivor of the massacre, who years later killed Captain Belfonte and to this day wanders the Powhatan Forrest trying to find the bodies of his family. Petri’s teacher Mr. Barton gave no credence to the stories. He said that Captain Belfonte was a notorious drunk and had most likely died of severe liver damage. But Petri knew that the Captain’s throat had been slit by the hand of Scarback. Dowder said he had seen Scarback one night in the woods. Another night Dowder had heard Scarback sharpening his knife down by the river. Petri’s mother dismissed these stories as tall-tales, but Petri knew they were true. Adults always make up explanations for things they cannot understand.

Petri continued walking through the town. The fog was creeping in and he knew he was being followed. A ghost perhaps. He popped in a handful of candy corn and smiled. A few early trick-or-treaters were out already. Petri waved at them. He was excited about the Halloween festivities at the church later on. The whole town would be there. Everyone except for Stanley Dowder. Petri had heard that Stanley Dowder and his friends were going out to the woods. They were going out to the woods to find the Indian graveyard. They understood what the adults did not. So did Petri. His mother would not let him go into the woods. He would go when he was older.

By the time Petri reached the church, the town of Shadow Grove was covered in the fog. The boy could hardly see the front entrance to the church. He didn’t mind. He could hear the laughter and festivities from all the way outside. He smiled and swallowed a lemon drop. Petri loved Halloween and he believed that the Shadow Grove folktales were true. He believed that they were true even when Stanley Dowder and his friends never came home that night from the woods. And he continued to believe them when Stanley Dowder and the boys were never seen again. The adults tried to explain it, but Petri knew what had happened to them. And so he never told anyone that sometimes he saw Scarback looking in his window on dark autumn nights when Shadow Grove was sleeping.

Bill Rochambeau wore a long grey beard that the members of ZZ Top would have described as "a bit much". His office was ice-cold, but that's just the way he liked it.

He shuffled some papers on his desk before addressing my inquiry.

"Watson is a kook," Rochambeau said to me, "you are aware that he is a proponent of the Hollow Earth Theory, aren't you?"

"He's not alone," I countered, "and how do we know the center of the Earth is not hollow and home to a fine race of people?"

"My friend, it is more likely that the earth has a gooey, caramel center than it does a hollow one."

"Sounds yummy."

"You believe that extraterrestrials abducted him?" he asked.

"I don't know. I do know that he has a pile of unread newspapers on his front porch."

"So do I. In my forty-six years, I don't think I've read three newspapers, front to back. But, that's only because I despise journalists, except you, of course."

"Of course. Whatever you believe about Watson, he is gone and there is little trace."

"Watson was not kidnapped by aliens," Rochambeau promised, "and I doubt that there are any extraterrestrials capable of traveling to earth, anywhere - anyhow."

"Sagan and Hawking would argue the point," I countered.

"Mr. Sagan, sadly, is in no position to argue anything and Hawking is possessed by the Mediocrity Principle."

"Possessed?" I repeated.

"I was searching for a word."

"And you found one. Shall I assume that you have no interest in the search for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe or even allowing for the possibility of same?"

"I am doing what I can to find intelligent life around here." He adjusted his glasses and gave a long pause. "The nearest planet, outside our solar system, whether inhabited or not, is ten and one half light years from earth. Do you know what that means?"

"It's far away," I offered.

"Exactly."

"So, you leave the house a little early, maybe skip the shower."

"Shower-skipping aliens, just what we need." Rochambeau was getting hot and I was half-glad I had gotten him there. He continued, "No form of intelligent life, anywhere, can travel at the speed of light, nor one tenth the speed of light, nor one thousandth the speed of light, period. And I'll let you in on some interesting data, because I like you, the average age of my students is twenty years, and, based on my conversations with them, less than five percent would tell you they even accept the possibility that we are being visited by extraterrestrials."

"Fine, if you assume that M.I.T. kids are in the know, that's your business."

"How long have you been on this planet?" Rochambeau asked me, after a sigh.

"I'll be thirty-eight in December."

"Have you ever seen an alien or an alien spaceship or an alien anything?"

"No, but I haven't always been looking." I sipped my coffee, but it had grown cold in Rochambeau's meat locker. "What do you think happened to Watson?"

"I don't worry about it. He'll probably turn up in a week or so with a milk carton tattooed on his back and a story about Inner-Venutian life that found its origin in Atlantis not to mention his collaboration with a Yeti."

"That sounds like a busy week." I replied.

"You said it."

Cubed

White walls, white floor, white ceiling, endless white as far as one could see, white on white, white, so bright, left and right, endless white, so bright, nothing but white. The ceiling opened without so much as a "whoosh". A two-foot, orange cube descended until it was at eye level with me. A panel on the front of the cube became a screen. A smile shaped curve appeared - disappeared, next came unrecognizable characters and then the characters reformed as English letters:

YOU ARE TO WAIT HERE - YOU WILL BE CALLED

"Called by whom?" I asked.

WHO! - YOU WILL BE CALLED AT THE PROPER TIME

"Is there any place where I can sit down?'

YOU WILL STAND - YOU WILL NOT SIT

THERE IS NO PLACE FOR YOU TO SIT

AND - THEREFORE - YOU WILL STAND

"In that case, I will stand."

YOU WILL STAND AND YOU WILL BE CALLED

YOU WILL WAIT HERE

"Until I am called?" I asked.

YES

The screen became a panel once again and the orange cube rose away.

The ceiling closed.

I waited.

Janette

I had a large French Roast at seven-thirty p.m. and that was a huge mistake. I tossed and turned most all of the night and was shaken by the strangest dream. Janette, my raven-haired love, was the star. She stood on the sidewalk, outside a downtown coffee shop, an odd looking establishment with orange awnings and circular windows. Janette punched the keypad of her cell phone. Katie, her longtime friend, appeared on the screen. Janette punched two more keys and Katie stood by her side.

"Beats the cab," said Katie.

"Never mind that," Janette replied, "you have a job."

"Ooh, I hope it's a hit. I love, love, love to kill, kill, kill."

"Nothing so dramatic. You have to pick up and deliver a one hundred seventy pound package."

"Yes!" Katie enthused. "Is it a male package or a female package?"

"Male, this time," Janette assured. "By the way, how are the kids?"

"Oh, getting bigger every day, just like their daddy."

The ladies shared a hearty laugh.

Tucker

The cube was lime-green and larger than the first. I followed it down the white corridor. The cube emitted a low, rhythmic hum, so rhythmic that I believed for a moment that I recognized a tune, but, no. We came to the end of the corridor and the wall opened. We entered an emerald chamber that was entirely empty, save for a solitary figure that faced the back wall, motionless. The cube departed. The figure turned. She wore a glossy black, high-collared uniform. I knew the face instantly, it was Sherriff Tucker.

"Meddler," she said gruffly, as if she were plucked from a Scooby Doo cartoon, "a meddling meddler, that's what you are."

"I do not know what you mean."

Tucker moved her portly frame closer. "I have a nick-name for you," she said. "I call you Question Man. Well, do you have any questions for me, Question Man?"

"Yes," I replied, "I was wondering where I am and why I have yet to see any furniture, anywhere?"

"You are in a non-material dimension, a dimension neither of space, nor physical nature, a holding area for the mind. There is nothing truly tangible, here, not even you, only your consciousness is really here, everything else is a product of your imagination."

"Is Watson here?" I inquired, already sure of the answer.

"Yes," she replied. "your precious Dr. Watson is here, that is to say, his mental essence is here?"

"What will you do to him?"

"Do not worry, he won't be harmed, just reeducated."

"You mean brainwashed," said I.

"I mean reeducated, wise guy."

"For what purpose?" I asked.

"Dr. Watson is going to run for governor, governor of Massachusetts to be exact."

"Watson disdains politics and politicians."

"The old Watson," she answered.

"And, he has never held any public office," I added. "It would be years before you could even lay the groundwork for such a run."

"Years mean nothing to us and I assure you we will need less time than you might think. Once in office, Watson will be in a prime position to help us with some important tasks. If we have to wait a bit for that benefit, so be it. The outcome will be the same."

"You may believe Watson to be your Manchurian Candidate, but I assure you, you will be disappointed. I know the man."

"The Manchurian Candidate failed," she said loudly, "we will not fail."

"And what of me?"

"We have an interesting plan for you," smiled Tucker.

"Does it involve flying monkeys?"

Tucker brought forth a loud laugh that echoed through the chamber.

Mannequins

Though the weather had been ideal, I kept a sweater in the car just in case I made a visit to Rochambeau's arctic palace. It was an indescribably brown piece of clothing and very bulky, but it kept me warm. Rochambeau did not think much of the garment and he told me so upon my next visit, but he soon moved on to much more important matters. I took a seat, presuming I would be there a while.

"I had three visitors at my house last night, my friend," Rochambeau reported.

"Ghosts or wise men?"

"Mannequins."

"Mannequins, as in Macy's mannequins?"

"Close enough, they had no hair, nor eyebrows, their complexions were waxy and they had tiny facial features."

"Well, how tall were they, what did they wear."

"They were your size, roughly speaking, and they wore casual slacks and polo shirts,not Banana Republic, either, more like Walmart issues." Rochambeau smiled at the notion, but he was clearly a bit shaken in recounting the visit.

"What did they want from you?" I asked.

"Nothing from me, except information about you. They were looking for your contact data and details about your background."

"What did you tell them?" I asked.

"Nothing, I said we were barely acquaintances and I must have been convincing because they bought it and left. What are you going to do?"

"I don't know what I could do. I'll be happy to talk to them. It might make for a good story."

"These individuals were not interested in helping you with any story. These individuals are bad news and they ain't bears."

Hired

"They contacted me out of the blue," I told her.

"That's hard to believe," replied Janette as she gazed down at her menu, "Boston area newspapers don't headhunt that way."

"Okay, they don't, but I've been hired and I will be working the political beat, be sure to check in ."

"Do you think you'll be happy?"

"Yes, actually, the freelancing was a great, but this job means a steady paycheck and I can always branch out, with the editor's okay, of course."

"Good." She traced the inside rim of her glass with her straw. "What about us?"

"You mean you and me?"

"That was the us I had in mind. I'm thirty-three, I'll be thirty-four in two weeks."

"I see the trend," I told her.

"I don't want to be old and lonely - and childless."

"I've told you, I don't believe I'd make a good husband or a good father."

Janette's blue eyes welled up. "What are you afraid of?" she asked.

"Spiders."

She forced a grin and then became indifferent. "I had a job interview today, a very good job, very good salary, very long hours, a real commitment, a four year commitment, at minimum."

"That's wonderful, isn't it?"

"If I am awarded the position, I won't have much time for anything else - anything."

"I understand."

Rain began to pepper Beacon Street.

Carbon

The blood surrounding Tucker's corpse formed a grizzly red diamond. I did not knowif I had killed her, but the knife felt right in my hand. Three mannequins stood nearby, observing her body, unflinching.

"Did I do this?" I asked the one closest to me.

"Only you can answer that," it replied.

"Why didn't you protect her?" I asked angrily.

"Protect her?" it replied. "Why would we protect her?"

"Don't you protect your own?" I inquired of the second.

"She was not one of our own," it replied, "she was human."

I caught my breath and rationalized, "Whoever killed her did the right thing. She was evil, as to that, there is no doubt."

"You would know," said the third mannequin, "she was your wife."

"Wife?" I laughed. "That's comical, I am a lifelong bachelor and between you and me, I prefer the slimmer type."

"But there is the ring," said the first, as it pointed to my hand.

After a moment, the ring clinked along the graphite floor until it came to a quiet rest.

Riddles

I sat on the park bench with Toby. He sniffed at the pockets of my cargo shorts in search of a treat. I broke the bad news to him, I hadn't brought any. He was fine with that. Mixed terriers adjust.

A pudgy boy approached on a bicycle that was a big hit in the seventies. "Hello, mister," said the kid, after skidding to a stop.

"Hello," I replied. "That's a neat old bike. When I was your age, we used to call that a chopper."

"We still call them choppers. My uncle gave it to me for my birthday."

"What a coincidence, my Uncle Gilbert gave me a bike for my birthday, a long, long time ago."

"My uncle's name is Gilbert, too," the kid promised. A knot formed in my stomach and my new friend produced a wry smile, as if sensing my discomfort. "What's your dog's name?" he asked.

"Toby," I responded, having nearly pulled myself together.

"He sure is cute."

"Yes, and he is a heckuva companion, too." I rubbed the pooch's head.

"Do you like riddles, mister?"

"Sure, who doesn't?"

"What's the point in knowing everything, if nothing is as it seems?"

"I don't know, kid."

"Exactly."

And then he was gone.

Missing

I eased my sedan onto the gravel driveway. A heavyset figure exited the house through the front door as I approached. It was certainly not Watson, unless he had been eating since I had last seen him and had become a woman. The midday sun gleamed on the sheriff's badge. The officer approached. She was mid-thirties, to my best guess, and she possessed a face that was most comfortable in a scowl.

I said, "Hello," offering my hand, as I stepped out of the car.

"I'm Sherriff Tucker," she said, and she shook my hand quickly. "You have business with Mr. Watson?"

"Yes, Dr. Watson is a friend and a former college professor."

"He's gone, has been for days, if his message machine is any indicator. When did you see him last?"

"About ten days ago. I received an email from him earlier this week asking me to meet him here today."

"Did he say anything about taking a trip."

"No, ma'am, he was very busy working on a class for the fall semester."

"A class about what?" she asked.

"Speculative Fiction and Anthropology."

"I don't know anything about that."

"Who reported him missing?" I inquired.

"Who said anybody reported anything?"

"I - uh, nothing."

"I'm gonna lock this place up," said the sheriff, "if you hear anything about Watson, please call my office."

"Yes ma'am."

Katie

I bumped into Katie as I left the gym. We greeted each other with a hug. She was as beautiful and cheerful as ever. Katie had always reminded me of Marisa Tomei, but after she began dying her hair red, she reminded me of a Scottish Marisa Tomei. I don't believe I ever told Katie that and I am certain I never passed the news on to Marisa.

"Rick and I were speaking about you just last night," Katie promised.

"I felt that. Tell Rick I said hello, will you?"

"Of course. How's that love life doin'?" she asked.

"On a scale of one to ten, I'm a D-minus."

"Well, my old friend Janette just broke it off with her guy, are youinterested?"

"Tell me more about him."

"Be serious," Katie insisted. "She is very pretty and smart like you."

"She can't possibly be as pretty as me." I paused and gave the prospect just a little thought. "Okay, I'm in, no blind dates, got it?"

"Who said anything about a date. You'll have dinner at my house with me and Rick and Janette will come too, no pressure. I'll even make my lasagna."

"Great," I replied. "I'll bring some of that wine-stuff I hear so much about."

Lights

It was late, but I continued typing:

Many of the observers reported seeing dozens of lights that they described as triangular or diamond-shaped. The lights appeared just before dusk in a strip of sky about one hundred miles wide and they were potentially viewable by nearly all residents of the Boston Metropolitan area.

"They (the lights) were orange and green," said Joe Knowles, forty-four, of Concord, MA. "There was one very large one and a bunch of smaller ones. The smaller ones seemed to circle the larger one, but I can't swear to that. At any rate, I never seen anything like it in my life."

Hundreds of observers called area radio stations, newspapers, and the Hanscom Air Force Installation in Lincoln, Massachusetts to report the sightings. A consensus of available reports indicates that the lights lingered for nearly twenty minutes and were accompanied by inclement weather. An air force spokesperson, Blake Keplinghouser, issued a brief written response the next morning. He attributed the lights to atmospheric phenomena, such as ball lighting, that found its source in the thunderstorms that were moving through the area at the time of the sightings.

Sprint

I walked Toby after dark. After ten minutes, it was clear that we were being followed. I moved forward - they moved forward. I stopped - they stopped. I quickened my pace and they did likewise. They were behind us for at least a half mile. I turned behind to gauge their proximity and they disappeared. I turned back and beneath a streetlight in the distance, three waited. The mannequins stared blankly ahead, as if it was a foregone conclusion that I wouldapproach. I was amazed that Toby hadn't so much as growled at them, but then, there might have been little scent to spur him on.

I sprinted a shortcut through the schoolyard, eager to see the lights of my apartment building. Toby dashed alongside me, joining me in a game that I was not playing. I heard the footsteps getting closer and just before they were upon me, I reached my patio. I turned back and enjoyed the empty darkness.

Green

"Say hello to the Assistant to the Governor's Press Secretary," Janette enthused.

"I'm happy for you," I declared, "and I love the office, but what is with all the green?"

"I love green, I find it soothing."

"Then you probably won't want the black mouse pad I got you as a congratulations gift." I held up the bag.

"Big spender, did you have to break a five?"

"I miss you, you know?"

"I know." She changed the subject quickly. "How's your buddy, Bill, doing? I haven't seen him in ages."

"He's fine," I replied, "but he's in one of his funks. The last time I called him, he behaved as if he hardly knew me."

"Did you say something to offend him? He can be touchy."

"No, no, he's just a moody sort. He'll be okay in a day or two."

"Good," she said. "Tell me, have you seen Dr. Watson since his election?"

"Just once, for about ten minutes, he was happier than I have ever seen him."

"Yes, and he is very thankful to you for your support during his run."

"I just write the facts," I told her.

"Come on, I'll buy you lunch."

Rubble

My guide was a mannequin. Its physical characteristics would argue that it could not show any recognizable emotions, and yet, I was convinced that there was a tinge of empathy about the being. Toby sniffed among the rubble and soon had an ash-grey nose for his trouble.

"Thanks for letting me bring the dog," I said.

"It makes no difference," said my guide. "Do you recognize this area?"

"There's nothing to recognize, nothing definable, anyway. Is that a section of Interstate Ninety-five?" I asked, pointing to what I presumed was the east.

"Yes."

I pondered for a few moments. "Well, I still can't pin down this location."

We walked about one hundred feet along the remnants of a blackened brick path. We came upon a pile of crushed concrete block that half-covered a large red letter.

"That's an M from a Macy's sign," I told the mannequin. "We're at the mall, the mall in my hometown, I know it, now."

"The mall," it repeated.

"The prices were high, but I'll miss the food court. You know, I used to work here as a kid, scooping ice cream."

"That was a long time ago," said the mannequin.

"Twenty years."

"It was significantly longer than twenty years ago," said my guide, "significantly longer."

I climbed atop a concrete slab and gazed about landscape. The surrounds were scorched to black as far as the eye could see. "Who did this?" I asked.

"Evil beings with evil intentions," came the reply.

"Isn't it always? Did anyone survive?"

"No, no one, not a person, nor an insect, nor a weed."

"Why did you show me this?" I asked.

"Who else would I show?"

"Am I in hell?" I asked, as I climbed down from the slab.

"Only you can answer that."

"Could this have been stopped?"

"I imagine that it could have been stopped." The mannequin turned his back.

Toby gave a short whine and I picked him up. "Could it have been stopped by me?" I asked.

"One never knows."

Watson

The Cape Anne was set back far from the road and was guarded by pine tree sentries of the sturdiest variety. I saw Watson waiting before the front steps as I pulled down the long, gravel drive. We greeted each other and he escorted me to the back deck where we sat separated by a patio table.

"Warm for April 1st," Watson noted.

"Yes, Dr. Watson I concurred, we have set three temperature records in the past three weeks alone."

"You say we like you had something to do with it."

"One never knows." I said.

"How about some coffee or tea?"

"No."

Watson paused and stared into the woods behind his home. The midday sun hardly complimented his sixty-five year old visage. "They made a visit, again, last night."

"How many times is it now?" I asked.

"Four. They always come at 10:12 pm. I do not know why. The always come in threes, one representative from each of their continents, Shurn, Fayl and Bext."

"Continents?"

"Eighty percent of their planet is covered by water. There are three super-continents, if you will, and thousands of islands."

"No such thing on Plyxint, the inhabitants are genderless, sexless. When one being dies, it is immediately replace by another via a procedure we may refer to as cloning. The population count never changes. Never."

Mark sauntered over to Jenny's desk at the usual time. Raj and Elinor both saw him, took the cue and rose to join them. They all watched from behind a row of filing cabinets.

Robert worked across to the other side of the open plan office. He tidied away his lunchbox, unlocked his desk and took the little box out of his top drawer. His large, bald head wobbled slightly, as if it might topple off his neck.

"Heeeerrre he goes." Mark whispered. The others chuckled.

"Why does he do it?" Jenny asked.

Elinor screwed up her face. "Because he's a fucking weirdo." More tittering.

Robert carefully placed the small metal box on the desk, took a key from his pocket and turned it in the tiny padlock. He did not open the box completely, but gently lifted the lid just an inch or two and lowered his head, peering through the gap. As always, a tiny, satisfied smile crept onto his lips. His eyes widened and he gave a satisfied nod. He held the pose for a few seconds longer, then shut the lid and put the box back in its drawer.

"What is that all about?" Raj asked.

Jenny turned back to her desk, gently brushing Mark's leg as she did so. "Whatever's in that box, he's obsessed."

"I'm going to ask him." Mark said. They all turned to him. "I'm going to ask him straight out. I've got to know what he's up to."

"Ahhhh. Leave him be Mark. It's not worth it."

But Mark was already gone, striding across the office. When he arrived at Robert's desk, he stood over his colleague's shoulder and waited for him to turn round. Robert's gaze remained fixed on his monitor.

"Robert."

A jolt seemed to go through Robert’s body. He span around and looked up at Mark.

"Ayah" He said, as if he couldn't quite decide between "hey" and "hi".

"I've got a question for you, Rob. Well, a few of us have." Mark nodded over to the others, who quickly ducked back behind the filing cabinet. Robert saw them and frowned.

"What? Is there a problem with the reports?" His voice was thin, reedy. "I triple check them you know."

Mark smiled, tilting his head to a precise angle so that Jenny could see his face. "No Rob, it's not about the reports. Nobody reads the reports."

"Oh c'mon! The box you look in everyday, after lunch. The box that you keep in your top drawer."

Robert sat there, staring up at Mark, unable to compose himself. His head was wobbling again.

"What's in the box, Rob? I wanna know. We all wanna know."

"I . . . I, I'm sure I don't know what you mean. I would rather keep office chat to work related matters, if you don't mind."

"You brought it into work. Not me."

"Just, just leave me alone please."

"I will. When you tell me what's in the box."

Robert drew himself up in his chair. "No."

Mark tapped his temple with his finger. "There's something wrong with you." For a full five seconds they stared at each other, then Mark turned and walked back to the others.

###

Staff were mandated to attend the Christmas Party. Despite this, most people enjoyed themselves drinking cheap alcohol and dancing to terrible music in the building's atrium. Jenny and Mark alternated between talking and dancing with each other all night. Eventually, towards the end of the party, Raj and Elinor joined them at the edge of the dance floor. They shouted over the music.

"There he is." Elinor pointed over to the corner of the room. "He's been sitting by himself all night."

Robert had been nursing the same plastic cup of orange juice since the start of the party.

"You know what we should do?" Jenny said. The others looked at her, bemused. "We should go upstairs and take a look in his box."

"These desks are cheap as shit," Mark said. "All we need is steady hand." He found a paper clip on an adjoining desk, unbent it and then formed a small hook to the end. Then he knelt in front of the drawers and inserted it into the lock. He moved it around for a few seconds, then there was a 'click'. He pulled the drawer open.

"You've done that before!" Jenny was smiling at him. Mark didn't answer. He reached inside and pulled out the box.

Elinor did a little dance of delight, then stopped abruptly. "Okay genius, how we gonna open the padlock?"

Mark picked the box up in one hand, held it to his ear and shook. "Odd."

"What?" Jenny asked.

"I thought I heard . . ."

Jenny heard the change in his voice. "Heard what?"

"Nothing. Let's, let's just get it open." He walked around the desk and picked up a paperweight, and returned to the box. He held the padlock over the edge of the desk and slammed the weight down onto it. The padlock snapped off with ease.

There was no laughing now. Jenny, Elinor and Mark all stood back from it, a pace or two, a question hanging in the air. Jenny was the first to ask it: "Who's going to open it?"

Mark was quick to answer, maybe too quick. "It was your idea."

Elinor didn't want an argument. "Let's do it together."

They agreed without speaking. Each of them stepped forward and each placed a hand on the lid of the box. In unison, they lifted it, opening it wide so they could see everything inside.

At the entrance to the office, Robert stood and watched.

###

There were still two working days before Christmas. On the Monday morning after the party, Elinor, Jenny and Mark were seated at their desks as usual. When Raj arrived, he turned on his PC and paced around his desk to see Mark.

"Hey man! What was in it? Did you get a look?"

Mark looked up, his face impassive. "Did I get a look in what?"

"The box, dufus? What was in Robert's box?"

Mark just looked at him blankly. His eyes flicked to his left, across the office. "I need to work."

Confused, Raj immediately glanced over at Elinor and Jenny. They were already watching him, both with the same blank expression. He went over to Elinor, calculating that she, of any of them, would be the one to talk.

"Hey Els, What was in the . . ."

"I'm working. You should too."

He gave a nervous laugh, then waited for her to continue, expecting the punch-line. Elinor went back to her screen and Raj was left standing there, unsure if he should try again. He moved towards Jenny, but she was already walking across the office.

When she reached Robert's desk she leaned into him and whispered something in his ear. Robert turned and stared over at Raj, then said something to Jenny.

She smiled, stood up, took Robert’s head in her hands and kissed him tenderly on the forehead.

Pink stripes jumped off the walls of the club onto the dancers, twining around them as the people gyrated to the sound of a band that would be the next big thing. Every band that played in this joint turned out to be the next big thing.

"Maxie," Simone said as she sidled up next to me -- and when this dame sidled, there wasn't a part of your anatomy that didn't know it.

"Pink pyros are illegal immigrants," I said, nodding at the stripes that were slowly sucking the life out of the dancers in her club. By slowly, I mean geologically. The dancers were only losing about a minute for every ten minutes of contact, but still that's life that can't be begged, bargained, or stolen back.

"Maxie, they give so much in return. Besides, everyone signs a disclaimer when they come in."

Funny, I hadn't signed any damned disclaimer. But then I didn't like pink pyros near me. I liked my mind-altering substances served in a glass with an olive. "Disclaimer?"

"Everyone but you. Rolfo knows not to stop you at the door."

Rolfo and I had shared words one evening when he thought the fact he was about six inches taller than me and a whole lot bigger meant he could take me.

He couldn't.

Someday that limp would go away. And he looked dashing with that scar across his face.

"Are we going to have a problem over the pink pyros?" Simone was doing more of her world-class sidling, and I decided to leave the immigration problems to the boys who had that word in their portfolio. Let them earn their damn pay.

"I'm looking for someone. Name of Viyelle."

"That's her." She pointed to a booth in the corner where a woman who gave luscious a whole new meaning sat.

I eased Simone away, out of range of anyone who might be listening. "What can you tell me?"

She shrugged. "She started coming in about a month ago. Pretty hard core. Likes her drinks strong and her men nasty."

"Thanks, toots."

She rolled her eyes at the name. "Oh, and first drink's on the house, Maxie. For services rendered with Dahleen."

I grinned. Dahleen had been one hell of a jerk. It had given me great pleasure to take him out for her. "I think you owe me more than one drink for him."

She gave me the look of Simone-disgust. "I could have shot him in an alley. I was hoping for some finesse from you."

Which was why the cops hadn't thought I could possibly be involved. Gunning down jerks in alleys wasn't my style; they'd expected more finesse out of me, too.

"Fine, but I'm going for premium booze this time. No stinkin' house brand." I leaned in and kissed her cheek.

She fidgeted. Simone was big on being the physical instigator, not so happy with others touching her first.

I decided to go for another freebie -- it wasn't that often she was in a mood to tolerate my bullshit. "You and me, kid. Someday."

"Right." She pushed me away. "I've got work to do." She sashayed toward the bar, and I noticed that my eyes weren't the only ones riveted to her backside -- the woman's curves had curves.

But, as fun as it was, I wasn't here to ogle Simone. I was here for the woman in the booth. Viyelle De Lande. Trouble with a capital ooh la la.

She and my current client had unfinished business.

I strolled over and sat down across from her.

"Did I say you could sit there?"

"Did you hear me asking?"

She perked right up. Simone could call 'em: this girl liked it rough.

"There a reason you're here? Other than to harass me?"

"Do you know a Katherine Landis?"

She made the face of general non-recognition. Her smoky blue eyes met mine with frank interest, but there was something in them that gave me the creeps.

Maybe it's that I was looking at Katherine Landis, only Viyelle didn't know it. I hadn't been sure I believed the sweet kid's story of waking up in strange beds with men who were eager to resume nasty things she'd never, ever do. She'd told me that something else, something other, was taking her over.

But looking at Viyelle, I could see it. Hell, I could practically taste it.

"You like what you see?"

"That's pretty much guaranteed, isn't it?" I studied her dress; it was white, obviously expensive, and looked hard to clean -- in my line of work, ease of cleaning was important. Her blonde hair was pulled up in a posh way; her makeup was heavy, but well done. Ruby red lips left an imprint on her glass -- single-malt scotch unless I missed my guess.

"So, why are you here?" She sipped her drink. "I take it this Katherine person has something to do with it."

"You know about alter egos?"

She raised an eyebrow.

"Split personalities?"

She smiled, a sardonic half lift of her lips, one side going just high enough to show disdain.

"Demon possession?"

"Ah, now you're getting somewhere, Mister...?"

"Norman. Maxwell Norman. But my friends call me Maxie."

"I'm not your friend."

"Well, my enemies tend to call me Maxie, too."

"In other words, don't call you Maxwell?"

"You got it."

She looked around, suddenly batted away a pink pyro that was trolling for life energy. "I thought they were supposed to stay on the dance floor."

"They are." The pyro careened off her blow and headed toward me. I whispered, "I have standard bullets, and I have a class-five laser pistol. One of 'em ought to do the trick, you parasitic little worm."

The pink pyro squeaked loudly and fled back to the dance floor.

"Guess you're not a man to be messed with."

"Guess not." I nodded toward Rolfo at the door. "He can attest to that."

Her eyes gleamed. "You were the one who messed him up?"

"Yep."

"Interesting." She managed to draw out the word, curling her lips in fascinating ways as she caressed each syllable.

"Enough about me. Tell me your story."

"Not much to tell. I'm with the Fleet."

I tried to wrap my head around the idea of her in a uniform rather than the skintight number she was sporting. My head refused to go there.

"Seriously. I clean up well."

"I'm sure you do." I'd seen how well. Katherine had come into my office the way most of my clients did -- tentatively, with a hushed, "Are you Mister Norman?" She'd been wearing a modest light blue dress with a little white sweater over it. Her hair had been down, her face scrubbed clean. She'd looked five shades of innocent.

A galaxy away from the woman I sat with.

"Something happened." She leaned forward, which gave me an excellent -- and I suspected deliberate -- view of her cleavage. "On the last mission."

"When was that?"

"Five weeks ago."

"How coincidental. That's when Katherine started having blackouts."

Viyelle smiled. "Why are men so taken in by that sweet innocent routine?" She leaned back, diminishing the impact of her distracting, if pleasant, cleavage. "I'm the real deal. She's the demon in possession."

"I have to tell you, doll. If I go by looks and temperament alone, you're the most likely to be the evil possessing thing."

She rolled her eyes. "All right, maybe she's not a demon. But she's definitely an alien. I'm possessed by some prudish alien who's intent on ruining my life."

"Ruining your life how?"

"I have these blackouts. I wake up from them in the weirdest places."

"Such as?" I couldn't wait to hear what this woman considered outré.

"Such as church. Quilting parties. Soup kitchens."

I couldn't hide the grin.

"Hey, okay, my life -- when I'm not working -- is pretty wild. But it's my life, and I have a right to keep it."

"You've only been coming here a month -- seems to me that goes to her claim, not yours. You'd have been a regular here if the high life had always been your thing."

"I've only been assigned to this city for six weeks. It took me awhile to decide which hot spot I like best. And I was gone for a week on the mission where I picked up...her -- whatever she is."

"Where were you assigned before?" I'd be checking up on her once I got back to the office. I'd have done that already if I hadn't been so sure Katherine had been telling me the truth. Those wide blue eyes had seemed incapable of lying. Whereas Viyelle seemed to be a pro at that -- and probably a whole lot of other -- vices.

"New Armistead."

I frowned. That was a posting that people vied for. You didn't just make that up. If you wanted to disappear into a crowd you said you'd been on Luna Station, or maybe the interplanetary ferry network.

"You don't believe me?" She leaned forward, and my eyes leapt to the cleavage that just didn't quit. "I wouldn't lie about that, Maxie. About other things, sure. But I'm an officer and a scientist -- and a damn good one. My career matters to me. Making a difference matters to me. What I do in a place like this, well, that's just recreation." She tapped her lips. "I bet I know why she picked you. You must have a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later. Especially if a woman asks for your help."

I gave her my stoniest look.

"She played you." She took my hand, her skin warm on mine, and laughed huskily. "How were you going to get rid of me?"

I hadn't really thought that one through. I'd just heard the story, seen the tears falling from blue, blue eyes, and taken the case.

"Killing me is out. Maybe a mind sieve. Remove all the Viyelle parts?" She smiled. "It's what I'd do. What I plan to do, if she'd quit commandeering my body every time I head for the psych department at work."

"She knows, then? What you're up to when you're in control of the body?"

"Oh, I think so." She slid out of the booth, an incredibly graceful maneuver, and leaned over me, practically shmooshing that amazing chest into my face. "Do some damn research before I see you again. Try thinking with your brain instead of your gonads."

Then she was gone in a cloud of oriental-spice perfume.

###

I hated doing research. I was really much better on jobs that required a steady hand, a smart mouth, and no difficulty pulling a trigger. And I prided myself on being able to read people. Viyelle, for instance, wasn't a very nice person. She was out for herself, self-confident to the point of egocentric, and probably into a lot of kink. But she also hadn't seemed to be lying.

Problem was, neither had Katherine. She was a sweet kid. Earnest, into doing good works. And she wanted to get rid of "that hussy" as she'd blushingly called Viyelle. I didn't think she'd been lying, either. But that didn't mean she wasn't the one who was doing the possessing rather than being possessed.

I turned on my NetBox and ignored the urge to play vid games, which is what I normally did with the machine. Bypassing them, I fired up the search engines that only a very few had access to and began to check out Viyelle De Lande.

Fleet employee? Check.

Stationed at New Armistead? Check.

Reassigned to Miami six weeks ago? Check.

I looked deeper. Viyelle didn't just work for Fleet. She was a leading scientist and seemed to have had her pick of assignments. Her professional file made no mention of her personal proclivities.

But there were other places I could look for that kind of information. I typed in the passwords that took me through three firewalls and probably some booby traps before I got to a list run by those in the business of knowing what made people's socks roll up and down. Kink or vanilla, it was all here. If that person was someone.

And Viyelle was someone.

I looked up Katherine Landis. She existed, all right, but not in the "who's who" list, only in the general database. Right age. Right gender. Blurry image of her in the file. Could be the woman I saw, might not be.

Katherine, according to her file, lived in the Miami suburbs and worked a variety of minimum wage jobs. Her monthly income was probably what one of Viyelle's dresses cost. Which didn't mean she wasn't telling the truth -- Viyelle could be stealing the clothing or maybe she did buy them, supplementing Katherine's meager income with money earned through sex. It might be a reason Katherine had created Viyelle -- to overcome the shame at what she had to do to make ends meet.

Provided that Katherine was really Katherine. I noted the address and drove over to her house. She was home. Blonde. Blue eyes. But not my Katherine.

"Have we ever met?" I asked her.

"I don't think so. I'd remember." She smiled and while it was a sweet expression, it lacked the angelic quality of my Katherine -- my Katherine, who as Viyelle had known, didn't exist other than inside her.

"Sorry to have troubled you, miss."

She went inside, shutting the door and locking it. She seemed a timid person. Scared of the world.

I sighed and headed back to the office.

###

"Mister Norman?" Katherine--my Katherine--peeked her head in.

"Come on in." I gave her my best smile.

She walked in, dressed primly, looking sweet in a hair ribbon and pink lipstick. It was impossible to see Viyelle in the way she moved, in the gentle way she met my eyes, how she clasped her hands as she sat down and crossed her ankles rather than her legs in the more provocative way I imagined Viyelle would do it.

"We have a problem, my dear."

She cocked her head, stared at me with a trusting expression. "I believe there's never a problem two people can't solve."

"She's also a brilliant scientist. Or did you think I wouldn't do my research?"

Her eyes gleamed in a gently amused way. She clearly had been counting on me not doing it.

"You, on the other hand, are not who you seem. Katherine Landis exists, but she's not you."

I half expected her to reveal herself the way a bad movie villain would. Spilling her nefarious plans just before she pulled out a gun and blew me away. But she just sat, hands still folded, ankles still crossed. "You like me better than Viyelle, Maxwell."

God, even that hated name sounded nice coming from her lips. "Yeah, Katherine, I do like you better. But that doesn't change the fact that you're a hitchhiker. A parasite. And I'm really not fond of those."

She looked down, and I realized I'd hurt her feelings. "I'm a person," she said. "Just not the way you know it. I need a willing host."

"Viyelle ain't willing, doll-face."

"The transfer is very complicated to explain, but trust me when I say I'd have never picked her if I'd known what she was really like. On assignment, she's all business. But off duty? She's everything I hate."

"You're not her favorite person -- err, entity -- either." I leaned forward, tried to look stern. "Especially since you sent me to get rid of her."

"I knew she'd talk you out of that. She could talk the birds out of the sky. Or just flash her boobs at them and they'd fall out." The sweet expression soured a bit. She still looked charming.

"You don't do so bad at the snow job, either, Katherine. Believe me, innocence has its own charm, just as powerful as raw sex appeal."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I could go with Viyelle to the psych department and have you wiped."

"You could. It won't work, though. I'm not resident in her brain." She frowned. "We could get rid of her that way, though. There are men who do brain sieving on the Q. T."

"There is no we, Katherine." I raised an eyebrow. "And you want to go to a black-market wiper?"

"It would solve my problem."

"Well, it wouldn't solve Viyelle's." I got up, walked around the desk, and perched in front of her. "And you, my dear, are her problem. And I gotta tell you, she's not going to be a willing host unless you can offer her something very special." I pursed my lips, thinking as hard as I could, which came a lot less naturally than reaching for a gun and pulling the trigger. "Can you transfer to someone else?"

She shook her head. "Not till this host dies."

"Great."

"We choose people we assume we'll be compatible with. That way there's no fight for control, just a merging that's barely perceptible to them or the people who love them. But Viyelle's never going to allow that, and neither will I. We'll always be separate -- unless she vacates the premises."

Back to the black-market wipers. "Shut up, doll."

She looked down and wrung her hands. "I just want to live."

"So does Viyelle. And I have to say, she has the prior claim to the body she's in." I leaned back. "You must have picked her for a reason."

"I did. As you said, she's a brilliant scientist. I thought we'd be very compatible."

"Because you're a brilliant scientist, too?"

She nodded. "I'm actually more brilliant."

"Hmmm."

"Share?"

"I think it's time you and Viyelle had a real conversation."

"That's impossible."

"Not if you both want it. And if someone objective"-- okay, I wasn't really that, but I was the closest thing they were going to find --"brokers it. And records it." I leaned in. "Can you give her back control of her body?"

She nodded.

"Can you take it back whenever you want?"

She didn't look so sure. "Sometimes she fights me. And when she's hell bent on partying, that's when she's hardest to control. We're never less alike than when she's in the mood to do...those things she does."

"Okay. You need to trust me. Give her back her body, and I guarantee she'll give it back to you so you can speak." I reached behind me and opened my desk drawer, then dug around chewing gum and extra ammo clips till I found the recorder pen. "First, I want you to tell her a few things that will prove irresistible. Science stuff. Stuff she'll understand and, more importantly, want to hear more about."

Katherine smiled. She surprised me by standing and throwing her arms around me, pressing her body against me. It was a totally different experience than having Viyelle's anatomy in my face. I felt moved--and not in that way, well okay in that way, too, but emotionally, you know? The way guys don't talk about.

"Thank you." She kissed my cheek. "I really like you, Maxwell."

"Call me Maxie, sweetheart."

"Maxie." Her smile could have hung the moon.

I thrust the pen into her face before I was even more of a goner. "Talk."

And she did. For quite some time, about stuff I couldn't make up if I'd tried. But when she gave up control and I let Viyelle -- after she got over the initial shock of her prim outfit and the general untidiness of my office -- listen to it, it was clear Katherine knew her stuff.

"We could do all that... together?" Viyelle's eyes were gleaming, and for the moment she'd forgotten about being sexy and actually looked like a scientist -- if a damn hot one.

"You want the answer, toots, then you need to let go and allow Katherine to come back. I'll keep the recorder running the whole time while you two take turns talking. I'll play back what the other said, and then you can reply or ask questions. You can actually have a conversation."

And converse they did. For hours. I nearly fell asleep as they went from physics to chemistry to bio-something-or-other. Science was not my strongest subject in school.

Well, nothing was, but that's neither here nor there. These two were way out of my--or most anyone else's -- league.

Viyelle sat back, staring past me with an intent look. "Okay."

"Okay what?"

"Okay, she can stay."

"Really?" I didn't like how happy I was. Katherine had played me, pure and simple. Just 'cause she was a real sweet girl in spite of that, did not make it all right.

Viyelle nodded, then gave up control, her eyes closing and Katherine emerging as they opened again.

"Something's different. She's not fighting me anymore." She threw herself into my arms, knocking the recorder pen out of my hand as she kissed me for all she was worth.

And she was worth a hell of a lot.

"Baby, you don't have to do that."

She pulled away, the sweet smile lighting up her face. "I know. I just want to." Cupping my cheek with her hand, she lifted her face to be kissed.

Oh, man, I was done for.

Then she frowned. "I... I think she wants a word."

And just like that, Katherine was gone and Viyelle stood staring at me. Her hand on my cheek tightened dangerously, her eyes gleamed.

"It's not that I'm not grateful for all you've done, but this is not happening."

"Hey, when Katherine has the wheel, Katherine gets to pick the route."

Viyelle looked like that might just be a deal breaker.

I thought about Katherine, how much it meant to her to be able to stay. To have a willing host. What I'd do to make that happen.

I grabbed Viyelle's hair, yanked her head back, and kissed her. For a moment, she resisted, so I pulled a little harder on her hair and hoped Katherine wasn't getting any of this.

"This," Viyelle said as she pulled away, "is going to be very interesting."

Very damned complicated was more like it. Very damn messy.

I realized Katherine was standing in front of me now. She looked pleased with me. "Whatever you did, it worked."

"Yeah, about that. I had to --"

Katherine's fingers settled hard on my mouth. "Don't tell me. Really." She took my hand and pulled me out of the office. "Ice cream sundaes on me. To celebrate."

I imagined Viyelle would want to celebrate with very expensive booze.

Between the two of them, I might end up a fat lush. Not so great for my line of work. I'd have to hit the gym or jog or something.

Prince Syree knew that within six hours he would be dead. Standing tall and proud, his glossy skin and patagia a dark blue, he stared out at the rain drumming against the windows of the hexagonal mess hall. Lightning illuminated the slender, golden starships in the distance.

The tip of Prince Syree's saurian tail twitched. His stomach gurgled.

"Attention, Defense Teams," the deep voice of Mission Control piped from the loudspeakers.

Syree sniffed the air, but could only detect the faint odor of disinfectant used by the cleaning crew. "I hope they're not sending us up without dinner," he said to Res Halnor, his ship's nexialist--their jack-of-all-trades.

Halnor, a dark violet saurian and, like Syree, a Slick, avoided eye contact with the Prince. She just nodded and, bending her long, graceful neck, pretended to examine the talons of her right hand.

The voice over the loudspeaker continued, "Enjoy your meal. Three days ago the renegades of the Black Fleet annihilated the colonial planet Alpha Thentis 4. Their arrival here is imminent. Remember, citizens will be heroes and criminals will be pardoned if you survive the mission. Go to your assigned vessels when the klaxon sounds. Good soaring."

"Look at 'em. A hundred or so 'volunteers' just milling about. Waiting to die," said Res Kreenree, a green and brown mottled Slick and the engineer for Syree's assigned ship. He was leaning against one of the freshly washed, white interior walls, not far from Syree, casually smoking a cigarette.

Kreenree was trying to flirt with Halnor. Well, give him enough rope... Syree didn't say anything. Just shook his head.

"Anybody think it's odd that they'd trust someone convicted of arson with cigarettes and a lighter?" Kreenree continued. He looked at Halnor. "Or a serial killer with a laser pistol?"

"Just in case any of those warp-mad saurians teleports onto our ship," Halnor said as she touched the pistol in the belt around her neck. She gave Kreenree a wry smile. "Have you noticed that just about the only Roughs in this crowd are 'citizens,' not criminals? How come Slicks come up before the courts of this fine kingdom so much more often than Roughs?"

Kreenree took another puff on his cigarette. "Speaking of Roughs, where's our captain?"

Syree was about to reply when gates in the walls slid open and chutes extended nearly to the floor. Hungry saurians roared in anticipation of the coming meal. Squealing niligans, pig-like animals the size of cocker spaniels, slid down and out onto the mess hall floor. Scrambling to their feet, without furniture to obstruct them, they ran panic-stricken among the eager saurians.

"Dinner!" Prince Syree said. As a buff-haired niligan bounded past, he skewered it with the talons of his left hand. He tossed it into the air and snapped his razor-sharp teeth through its neck and shoulder. The creature died instantly. Syree tilted his head up, savoring the hot blood coursing past his tongue into his throat. With a toss of his head, he flipped the niligan around, head-first, and swallowed it.

Syree turned to the tall, slender Kreenree and said, "You don't think Respected Captain Corrin would eat her last meal here with us, a bunch of Slicks, do you? Not that beauty queen!"

He licked the blood from his hand, then continued, "Why, she's probably somewhere putting makeup on her patgia." Syree extended his arms, stretching his own glossy blue patagia taut, and pirouetted--a gesture mocking Captain Corrin's vanity--and which sent the niligans skittering and squealing.

Kreenree, watching for a niligan to come his way, threw his cigarette to the floor and crushed it with his foot. "Res Halnor, I 'spose you'd have had a brilliant research career--if you hadn't been a Slick. Is that why such a young and attractive PhD became a serial killer?" Kreenree asked. "Or did the cops just stop looking when they picked you up, like they did with me?"

Halnor raked one of the scampering niligans with her talons. Screaming in pain, it escaped. Kreenree stunned it with a blow from his tail and kicked it back toward the nexialist. "Heads up there! You'll think faster with a full tummy."

Syree just smiled and thought, "He doesn't give up."

Halnor's brow ridge flushed green with thanks but the young saurian said nothing. Her teeth pierced the niligan's neck. After swallowing it, she said, "I'll bet in the olden days--before cities and aircraft and spaceships, when our ancestors soared from the cliffs and trees--smooth scales were better than rough. It isn't fair that I should be treated like a criminal and sent to die just because my scales are slick."

"Relax, Res Halnor, we are criminals. Maybe it's not a suicide mission. Maybe we'll survive, be pardoned, and you can soar again. So eat hearty," Syree said.

She furrowed her brow, looked at him, and said, "You're a prince, Syree. You shouldn't even be here. How can you make light of this situation?"

"Shouldn't be here? Tell it to the judge. Even being a prince isn't enough to save a Slick who collides with an airliner." He skewered another skittering niligan, enjoyed the hot blood, then swallowed the carcass. "Perhaps if I'd been a Rough, things would have been different."

"Different, Hot Shot?" asked Res Kreenree, not impressed by Syree's royalty. "You mean if you'd been a Rough you wouldn't have become a hot shot pilot recklessly scurrying around the flightways? Or if you'd been a Rough they wouldn't have convicted a prince? Face it--You were born on the wrong side of the blanket. You'll never be a real prince."

For a moment, Syree just looked at Kreenree. Any further exchange was ended by the raucous call of the klaxon. Except for the grunting of the few remaining niligans, the room fell silent. Everyone waited for the voice over the loudspeaker. One by one, the name of each saurian was called. A mini-thunder clap followed each name as air filled the empty space left behind when the saurian teleported from the bloody mess hall floor to the spaceport tarmac.

"Aitch!" Syree cursed, wincing as he materialized and his body pushed aside the rain drops in the light sprinkle.

The saurians didn't dare to teleport directly onto the bridge of their ship. Small spaces were too confining to try a stunt like that. Any overlap with a flight-couch, or another saurian, could be deadly. Maybe another million years of evolution would improve their skills.

One by one, they sprinted toward the tall golden ships illuminated before them. Up the elevators. Through the airlocks. Just like the drills of the past weeks.

Captain Corrin, a white saurian with a PhD in subspace communications was already at her position on the bridge as Syree, Halnor, and Kreenree climbed the spiral stairs and emerged through the hexagonal portal in the center of the floor.

"Into your couches," Corrin said as the hatch slid closed behind them. "The renegades have come out of warp. Twenty-five seconds to ignition. Ready?" Her voice communicated not a trace of the antipathy betrayed by her glance.

The bridge was a hexagon nearly ten meters across. On a typical Home starship, each of the six walls would be the location of a distinct console. Corrin stood in front of the Captain's Console--a 3D view screen taking up most of the wall. A pair of interference speakers, one to either side of the view screen, tracked the Captain's movement and allowed her alone to hear Mission Control and ship-to-ship communications.

Syree approached the opposite wall. Here, a second, somewhat smaller, view screen was located above the Pilot's Console--a bank of switches, dials and LCD readouts nearly two meters wide. The two walls flanking the Pilot's Console had similar equipment--the Engineer's Console at the left and the Nexialist's Console to the right. On a typical mission, the walls to either side of the Captain's Console would have the Navigation and the Defense Consoles. This was not a typical mission and these last two walls were bare.

Each crew member moved to his designated station, straddled his flight-couch and settled in, then pulled the harness over his back and shoulders, securing it with a click.

Syree looked at the others. "Ready," he said.

"Ignition," Captain Corrin ordered.

Syree initiated the launch sequence. Moments later the ship shuddered.

"Home Guard Eight, away, Res Captain," Syree said.

As it moved up through the storm clouds, Eight began to vibrate, rattling the crew's teeth. Acceleration pressed the saurians down into their couches.

"Remember," Captain Corrin said, struggling to look at Syree and the others over her shoulder. "We're a team, just like in the simulations. Each renegade saurian has more warp power and a stronger link to the High Plane in that little bone at the tip of his or her tail than we have in all of our bodies put together. That's why they were chosen for star travel. It'll be all that we can do, even augmented by our ship's crude warp engine, to maintain proper position between the renegade ships of the Black Fleet and Home. Look sharp."

Syree adjusted their trajectory.

"Engineer--Arti-grav on," Corrin ordered. "Each of you, confirm your readouts and data streams." Movements were easier as the artificial gravitational field was adjusted to Home-Normal.

"Res Kreenree, change the view screens from visible to our new 3-Kelvins band."

Now, the previously invisible space-black ships of the renegades stood out as clearly against the false-color green of the background radiation as did the golden ships of the Home Guard. The Black Fleet waited along Home's orbital track as the planet approached.

As Syree and the others watched the 3D displays, twenty-four golden needles slowly assembled into an array of seven interlocking close-packed hexagons shielding the planet Home from the Black Fleet.

"Res Halnor," Corrin said. "Make sure to scan everyone on our target ship as often as you can. We must find some clue to their warp-madness. Res Kreenree, see that every data bit gets back to Home, even into the dissolution of our ship."

"Res Captain," Syree said, his brow ridge darkening. He was proud of the way Kreenree and Haldor performed during the simulations. "We know our tasks."

"Current status, Res Kreenree," the captain said.

Kreenree called out each reading from his console. "Fuel--seven point two percent. Electrical storage--four hours thirteen minutes. Life support--four hours ten minutes. Depropagator power--one-hundred percent."

"All twenty-four ships will be in position in thirteen seconds, Res Captain."

"A historic, if dolorous, moment in the chronicles of our people. Stand by," Captain Corrin said. "Res Halnor, switch on audio so that we can all hear the conversation between Home Guard Ship One and the renegades."

Ship One's message to the Black Fleet had already begun. "...ships are not armed. We wish you no harm. Our only desire is to come on board and treat the warp-illness that is destroying your minds. As your scans must show, our ships are incapable of returning to Home. Let us go home together as brothers and sisters."

"We are no longer your 'brothers and sisters.' We have morphed beyond that. We are your masters. Submit or, like the others, be destroyed," came the belligerent voice from the flagship of the Black Fleet.

The ship to ship conversation was interrupted by a transmission from King Nella, Syree's uncle, at the Home Royal Palace. "This is Nella. We are one people and must remain so, Rough and Slick, warp-strong and weak. We want to negotiate."

"Negotiate? For the four hours remaining to your puny armada? It is you who are mad, not us. We do not negotiate. The Black Fleet demands your surrender--now!"

"Our surrender is not an option. Nor is yours. Black Fleet--Accept our offer of help from the ships that we have sent up, or perish," King Nella said.

"Or perish? Your Highness, we speak for the last time. The countdown has begun. The warp-fold field to destroy you and your planet is about to commence. You have only minutes to put your affairs in order," said the voice from the Black Fleet. The channel closed.

Kreenree punched the activation code into his console. "Active, Res Captain," Kreenree replied. "The Depropagator will come to full power as their warp-fold field peaks, assuming that we're all in sync."

"Looks like this is going to have to do," Syree said, reaching out to his screen as if to nudge the 3D images of their ships into proper positions. "Now what?"

"One aitch of an explosion!" Halnor said. "If we knew more we wouldn't have crammed twenty-four ships with sensors and transmitters. Let's hope that the folks back on Home will receive enough info for a better understanding of the High Plane. There has to be a reason why bio-warping space-time produces madness in the Roughs but a warp-engine doesn't."

A moment later everything went silvery white. No sound. No silence. No up, no in. Only the silvery white scent spinning them over... and over... and over...

The white brightened to darkness. A faint rotten egg smell tinted the air a deep bluish-green. Syree's tongue flickered in and out, fondling his teeth. The cabin lights were off. In the darkness, the sun passed intermittently across the view screens.

Halnor began twisting dials and punching commands into her console. "I'm sorry Prince Syree. I'm just... Sorry. We've no hyperspace or warp navigational equipment. Didn't need it for this mission. All I see is just this one star. I thought it was the sun. It's not. This can't be right! Looks like we're in a bubble in a dust lane. Must've been blown through a tear in the High Plane. Could be anywhere."

"How about those lights, Kreenree? We need to check the captain."

"I said, just a second, Syree. Don't wrinkle your patagia! And as far as that aitch of a captain, let's hope she teleported into hyperspace."

Syree listened to Halnor's rapid, shallow breathing.

"Why Res Kreenree," Halnor said. "Calling the captain an aitch-tu-ess could get you court-martialed--even if she is one."

She was trying to get herself under control. Teasing Kreenree. She'd be okay. Syree's attention returned to the situation at hand.

The lights flickered on, then off.

"Aitch!" was Kreenree's lone comment.

As the lights came back on, the Captain's view screen flickered, then went blank. Wisps of green smoke curled from the edges. Corrin was slumped on her couch.

"Corrin's unconscious, but she's breathing," Syree said.

Kreenree bent for a closer look at his console. "Aitch! Arti-grav is malfunctioning. G-force is gradually increasing."

Halnor shifted, uncomfortable on her couch. She took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. "Prince Syree, we're not alone here. Looks like Eleven and Seventeen. Kreenree, switch the view screen back to visible," Halnor said.

Two golden needles tumbled across Syree's screen. Halnor continued, "And we're in trouble. We're in a star system--almost on top of the lone planet. Just coming into view on the screen now. We're going down!"

"No life signs on Eleven," Halnor reported. "Looks like maybe three on Seventeen."

"Hello Eight. Seventeen here. Captain and engineer, dead or unconscious. My nexialist and I are shook up, but all right. What's happening? Where in the aitch are we?"

"Look smart, Seventeen. Not much time," Syree said. "My engineer will transmit instructions to your navicom so your nexialist can get you powered up and you can stop that tumble."

"Look, buddy--I'm a second-story man, not a real pilot!"

"Get hold of yourself! This is Prince Syree. You've had enough training during the simulations to become an ace pilot, Pal."

"Sorry. Will-co. Hey! My nexialist, he said some of your transmission is garbled."

"Sorry, Hot Shot..." Kreenree interrupted, speaking to Syree. "Gravity is up to about four Gs. My arms are like lead. Hard to key in the info properly. Tell Seventeen to manually set their error-correction to maximum. That should compensate."

"Hey! Hot Shot! You still flying this tub?" Kreenree said, an edge to his voice.

"What? Yes! Sorry! Everybody, listen up. I don't know just how fast we'll be going at impact. Be ready to teleport yourselves out. But wait until the last moment! I'll give you a five-count. You did say this place has a breathable atmosphere didn't you Halnor?"

Syree pulled himself up against the arti-grav's four Gs and reached over Corrin. He released her harness to get a better grip on her, then turned his head to watch his fading view screen. "Ready? Five... Four... Three... Two... One... Now!"

The crew teleported from the ship just before it hit the ground.

Syree, with Corrin in his arms, materialized just a few feet above the ground. They fell, then tumbled though the snow. He looked around. The ship was a couple hundred yards away, a golden needle impaled in the frozen ground.

Halnor and Kreenree, materializing at a higher altitude, oriented themselves and soared out of the clouds. They circled the ship then glided back, landing beside Corrin and the Prince.

"You've got her, you fool! Why save a rotten egg?" Kreenree demanded.

Halnor looked at Kreenree. "'Only by protecting the rights of the minority can we insure the rights of the majority.' I heard King Nella say it once, in a speech on the vid. That's why, Kreenree."

"The scanner showed caves in those hills just to the other side of these trees," Halnor said, gesturing over her shoulder. She knelt to examine Corrin.

"Good. We can stay there while we wait for rescue," Kreenree said.

"Rescue?" Syree said. "Who's going to rescue us? Nobody even knows where we are. We don't even know where we are. We may have quite a wait! Let's gather some of this brush to make a litter for Corrin."

Halnor stood and began to gather downed wood. "Prince Syree, it's worse than that. On our way down I was looking at the scanner data taken during the explosion. Something went wrong when we depropagated the warp-fold field. The energy release was far greater than expected."

"I thought the unexpected was just what we should have expected," Kreenree said. "That's why we were loaded with all that fancy equipment." He looked around, but didn't pick anything up.

"Do you want the good news or the bad news first?" she asked.

"What are you getting at, Res Halnor?" Syree asked. "You said something about a 'tear in the High Plane' earlier?"

"Yes. The data indicated that most of both fleets were destroyed, as planned. But it also indicated a severe tear in space-time--The High Plane. I'm not sure of it's exact location, but it was big enough to allow anything in its vicinity to pass through subspace and come out who-knows-where or when. Just like us."

"You're saying that Home may have passed through the tear?" Kreenree asked.

"Not yet. But Home's orbital motion will probably take it right into the tear. Then, without the sun, all life there will die.

"Oh, great," Kreenree said, "So, what's the good news?"

"That was the good news," Halnor said, and hesitated. "The High Plane is very nearly flat--it seems to extend to infinity as the universe expands. Mass concentrations--our galaxy and the black hole at its center--produce localized curvature, stressing the fabric of space-time." She held her arms out and up, extending and tightening her patagia. "The data indicated that the tear will grow imperceptibly until it allows this stress to produce a sudden fold in the High Plane. In only five or six thousand years a significant chunk of our galaxy could snap out of existence." Her palms and patagia clapped together; air escaping from between her patagia blew up a cloud of snow so that she seemed to disappear for a moment.

"Nothing can stop it?" Syree asked.

"Maybe, if someone knew about it. If they had a proper starship, a hot shot pilot like yourself, and one of us as a passenger. The fabric of the High Plane might be woven back together, even at nearly the last minute. If they were extremely lucky. But..." Halnor looked around, sighed, and crumpled to the ground, sobbing.

"A lot of ifs," Kreenree said. He bent down and patted Halnor's shoulder tenderly. "What about life forms on this planet?"

She looked around, rubbing tears from her eyes, smearing her eye shadow. She took a deep breath. And another. Then she grabbed Kreenree's hand and squeezed. Sniffling and shaking her head, she said, "The scanners showed life, even here. But no signs of a civilization, if that's what you're hoping."

"Okay," said Syree. "We're going to make it. Let's see if we can get the captain to one of those caves."

"Sure," said Kreenree. "And after we see to her, then what?"

"We check out the ship for what can be salvaged and what can't," Syree said.

"No, no," Halnor said. She patted the laser pistol on her neck. "After we see to the captain, I'm going hunting. King Nella made us a promise. We went up, we stopped the Black Fleet, we're no longer criminals. I'd like to start my life as a free saurian on a full stomach. How about you?"

No one wants my job. Hell I don't even want my job, and I'm not even sure why or how I ended up with it…

I remember going to sleep one night after watching a movie with my girlfriend, next thing I knew I was in a dark windowless room. I wanted to call it an office, but it wasn't any office I had ever seen before. I was standing in front of a humongous wooden desk with legs carved with the images of ancient nameless creatures made from the same stuff as my childhood nightmares. Two candles, one on each corner of the desk, burned brightly offering the only light inside the room. The candle flames flickered sporadically even though there was no discernible wind in the room what so ever.

Was I dreaming? I know I didn't drink enough the night before to illicit this vivid of a dream. I started turning on the spot, panicked as I looked for an exit, but my eyes were greeted by four, cold stone walls without even a single window.

"To answer your question, no, you're most definitely not dreaming. I assure you that this is quite real, and you will not be leaving until we have had a chance to have a little chat."

The mystery voice that flowed seemed to be coming from the chair situated behind the desk, but it could have been coming from anywhere the way the acoustics played across the room. And the voice would have sent Vincent Price himself under the covers crying for his mommy. But hey, as far as I was concerned, this was still a fucking dream. I wasn't going to be pushed around inside my own head.

"What exactly do you have to say to me?" I asked. "Dream or not, I tend to like to be able to see the person I'm speaking to. So why don't you turn around and face me like a man?"

The red-leather wing-back chair began its slow graceful turn. I wasn't sure what to expect, but the bottom dropped out of my stomach. He was neither man nor beast, but more along the lives of a liquid shadow.

"We have a lot to talk about. Starting with what it is that you will be doing for me, being as I own your very existence now."

"I don't know who the hell you think you are, but no one owns me. I do what I want when I want, and right now I was to wake up."

The shadow raised his arms and out of nowhere, gale force winds ripped through the room, knocking me off balance. At the same time the two candle flames erupted into columns of white-hot fire.

It had the desired effect. I was one of those people who remembered things from their dreams, and I had never physically felt the effects of anything from the dream world. I began to think that this might not be a dream after all.

"What are you?" I asked.

"I am Death and you work for me now. There is no choice, no option B, just compliance to my will."

Holy shit. Death, the big daddy reaper. And he was claiming to own me. If this was shit's creek I was stuck neck deep without a fucking boat.

"What do you mean you own me? I've never made any deals or promises."

I couldn't make out his eyes, but the space where they would normally be seemed to be staring directly through my soul. The sheer force of his gaze dropped me to one knee.

"As your father, and his father before him, and so on through the history of your bloodline, the promise was made generations ago and so it remains. That is all you need to know."

Death's voice flowed with the mellifluous tones of a southern gentile. I thought I detected a hint of satisfaction in his words.

I started to laugh hysterically. I was once again sure this was a dream. Both my father and grandfather were still alive and kicking. I started to wonder if someone hadn't slipped something funky into my drink the night before.

"Sorry to burst your bubble Death, but my old man is still alive, in fact I saw him just the other night. So I think I'll change back to the regularly scheduled programming."

As the last word escaped my mouth I was to the floor as if I had been struck by an unseen sledge hammer. The room began to get frigidly cold.

"You called the man who raised you Dad, though he isn't your true father. Pity that you were never told the truth but such is life, or rather the end of yours."

There was no more gentile is his tone. Pure force had replaced it from one moment to the next. My brain was beginning to tell me that maybe I should show some respect… just in case.

"Okay. If you're Death, where's the old scythe and cape?"

"That pitiful Charles Dickens created that image. I enjoyed personally going to gather his soul when he passed on. As it were, that is what you will be doing for me from this moment forward -- gathering the souls of the departed. I will decide who, what, when, where and how, and you will never ask why or disobey."

***

It became quickly apparent that I was not dreaming. Death took me on a little field trip to watch my own funeral. Talk about a humbling experience; only six family members and a couple of friends showed up to see me into the ground. I had seen better turn outs in small town polling stations during the last election.

Once it was over, I was tossed directly into the fray. Apparently there was no time for training wheels. Death reporting for duty, will you be taking the elevator up or down?

At first it was quite traumatic. I collected the souls of the young and old, the guilty and the innocent, men and women and even the occasional child. The children stuck with me. No matter what kind of person you are, or in my case were, no one likes to see harm come to a child.

I will say this much for Death, he started me off with an underhand lob. With a simple word he sent me away on my first collection.

I was standing in a dimly lit hallway belonging to a turn of the century Gothic-style home. It was clean with plain furnishings, but something about the meticulous nature of the decor made me uneasy, as if I was in a dangerous place.

I heard Death's voice echoing in my head, "You will know what to do."

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, the backdoor of the home opened and a middle aged man began backing into the house. He was as meticulously dressed and cleaned as the homes furnishings. So non-descript that he would be hard to pick out of a crowd. He moved with purpose as he heaved a large rolled-up rug through the door onto the kitchen floor.

Regardless of what Death said, I had no idea what I was supposed to do, so I followed the man as he dragged the rug toward another door, this one with an old fashioned crystal door knob. The heavy rug thumped loudly on each polished step down into the belly on the house.

The basement turned out to be an elaborate maze built out far past the original foundations of the home. The journey through the labyrinth only took a matter of minutes until we reached a hallway with a lower than average ceiling, even as basements go. The walls had a series of alcoves roughly cut into them, and in each alcove lay bodies, all in different stages of decomposition.

As he unrolled the rug, I saw the newest addition to his collection. The man started to sweat profusely and his skin had turned a sickly color.

"Just a few more moments and then bring him to me." Death's voice rang clear as a bell in my head.

I didn't get a chance to consider what he meant because seconds later the man before me keeled over and began convulsing on the uneven dirt floor. Whatever was happening, it was obviously quite painful. What I wasn't expecting was to see his "spirit" -- for lack of a better term -- float up out of his body just like in one of those old Bugs Bunny cartoons.

As he looked down at his own corpse, he saw me for the first time out of the corner of his eye.

"Am I dead?"

"Based at what I'm looking at, I would guess yah," I replied. What can I say? Once a smart-ass, always a smart-ass. "You need to come with me."

"Where are you taking me?"

"My boss wants to see you. After that, it's over my pay grade."

"Am I going to hell?" His voice shook.

I took a moment to think about how to respond. I mean, it's not like I had a chance to go over the Grim Reaper handbook. I looked down the hallway at the rows of dead bodies.

"Are all these yours?" I asked.

He nodded reluctantly, as if he didn't want to admit it. "Yes, but they all deserved it. I was doing God's work."

"Well, I don't consider myself an expert on such matters, but if heaven and hell exist I wouldn't put my money on you taking the elevator upstairs."

***

They say that you always remember your first time. The truth is, I remember them all, every last one. All the pain, the sadness, the fear, the regret and confusion. And every once in a while the joy that the struggle was finally over.

Like I said, no one with a rational mind would want this job, I wouldn't even wish it on my worst enemy. I never slept, I never ate. I lived death, well-lived in the loose sense of the word.

After my first visit to Death's "office" I never saw him again. Though I always had a sense that he was watching me. I began to see deaths before they happened, letting me know I was needed. This is how it went for years. Time blurred as it became irrelevant to my purpose.

The only gauge I had was the number of souls I had reaped. But after thousands upon thousands, and thousands upon thousands of unanswered questions, I began to lose faith in everything around me.

I prayed for my time to end, but how do you take the life of something that is already dead?

***

One day, many years after I took up my post as one of Death's reapers, I was standing in a hospital in downtown Manhattan. Hospitals were always a regular stop on my route, and since it was flu season I knew it was going to be a busy day. The old and the young were always fragile this time of year.

Out of nowhere a voice came from behind me. "It never does change does it?"

I didn't react at first. In all my time, the only people who ever spoke to me were dead already. But when I looked over my shoulder, there was a familiar-looking man staring at me. Not through me, but directly into my eyes.

"He decided it was time for us to talk, thought you might have some questions for me."

I felt as though I'd seen this man before, but I couldn't put my finger on when and where. "Who are you and why can you see me?" I asked.

An expression of sadness crossed his face as his gaze found the floor, suddenly unable to meet my eyes.

"I am the one who gave you up all those years ago. I had hoped that if you stayed hidden you would avoid the fate that has befallen our bloodline. I am your biological father."

It suddenly dawned on me where I had seen him before. Every day of my life, before my transition to the spirit world, I had seen him when I looked in the mirror. It was in the shape of the eyes, the upward curve of the mouth and in the way that our hair grew out of control.

"If you're my father, you must know where my real mother is."

Again, the same look of sadness, but this time with a far deeper cut. "That's another side effect of our curse. Any women who gives birth to one of our sons dies during childbirth. And then we, the fathers, all die within a year of the birth of our sons."

In that one moment I felt like I had been hit by a dump truck. Even after all these years, how was I supposed to process this kind of information?

"That can't be right," I said. "I never had any kids."

He looked at me and said with a tone of pity, "None that you know of."